


copia

by constellatory



Series: disquiet [2]
Category: Persona 4
Genre: Gen, Grief, Introspection, mentions of character death but nothing explicit, poor coping skills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 02:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16715214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constellatory/pseuds/constellatory
Summary: A meditation on grief and the strange illogic of shock. Yu fails to cope with the death of his little sister.





	copia

**Author's Note:**

> a follow-up to [copingcetic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5719108).

Nanako.

Nanako was dead.

Nanako was _dead,_ and she’d died right there with his hands around hers, and he couldn’t do anything except watch her eyes shut.

(nanako was dead)

When he let himself into the house, it was dark. It had been afternoon when they’d all been out shopping, and he hadn’t been home yet to turn the lights on. He did so now out of habit, blinking in the sudden antiseptic brightness. His face felt uncomfortably stiff where his tear tracks had dried during his walk home through the snow.

The downstairs was pristine. He’d left things untouched on this floor since the kidnapping and uncle’s accident. He didn’t use anything except the kitchen, after all. There was no reason to touch the rest of the space. Besides, some whispering piece of him said that he had to keep it ready. Like they could come back anytime, the two of them walking in the door together hand in hand, maybe with a sheepish Adachi in tow, and they’d want to be able to settle down right away, wouldn’t they? Everyone in their usual places, their laughter and smiles bringing warmth back into a place that had somehow become just a hair too cold.

It was a foolish thing to think. His uncle probably wouldn’t be back for weeks, still. And... and...

(nanako was dead)

It was dusty. All the surfaces were growing dusty. He’d left things untouched, undisturbed, hadn’t felt like he could even intrude on spaces so _theirs._ Hadn’t cleaned in ages. Hadn’t felt like there was a need.

If Nanako walked in right now she’d be able to press her hand onto the table and leave her small handprint in the dust.

(nanako was dead)

He didn’t look. Could never quite raise his eyes to look at the living room when he walked in the front door even before tonight. Somehow, if he looked up, that would make the emptiness of the space more real. Tonight something even worse kept his eyes pinned to the floor, some sensation that sat on his lungs and made his breaths dizzyingly shallow, and if he looked up—

If he looked up, he had some sense he’d see something he could never unsee. He couldn’t. He couldn’t look up. He couldn’t.

He allowed force of habit to drag him up the stairs, his footfalls making the old stairway creak and settle. There was no one he had to worry he might wake with the noise. No one who could be concerned he’d come back so late.

(nanako was dead)

Somehow he found himself kneeling on the floor of his room in front of his futon. He wasn’t really sure how he’d gotten there from the last point he remembered, which was halfway up the stairs. He ... he was ... he’d grabbed some pajamas out of his drawers, pulled them into his hands and stared at them, and instead of going to change he’d slowly sunk down to kneel on the floor. He was still here. His feet were falling asleep. But if he moved, if he moved, he couldn’t, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. There was too much. There was too much. There was too much. There was too much.

(there was too much)

If he moved he might feel something. If he moved he might see something. Something. Something he shouldn't see, something not right. If he did anything, thought anything, he might, it might, something might. No. Bad. Don't. Can’t.

A stubborn shard of his rational mind pointed out the senselessness of it, railed against the sheer absurdity of this indescribable feeling. But appeals to reason did not compel his limbs into motion. Breathless nothing in the center of his chest kept him still, so still, maybe just still enough to prot ec t

 

(there was

                too much)  


When he managed motion it was to curl in on himself, gasping mutely as he pressed his forehead into the soft sleep clothes he’d picked out, staring at the floor and staring at the floor and staring at the floor. He thought of a pair of headphones, black and sleek and warm over his ears, and couldn’t wrap his mind around what it would take to stand and find them and pick them up and put them on. Thinking about it made him stiller, smaller, breathing shallower still.

_Move._

He didn’t.

_Move._

He didn’t.

_Move. Get up. You have to meet the team tomorrow morning._

All his mind met him with was nothing.

(nanako was dead)

Countless cold and moonless years inched by before his own fed-up internal monologue finally got hooks into his feet and hands and wrists and knees and said, _okay, that’s enough. You're cold and exhausted and you have a headache as it is. Making things worse won't help._

When he managed to uncurl even slightly, he could see his phone a foot or two away on the floor with zero recollection of how it had gotten there. He reached out to flip it open, and the display said 1:30 AM. He'd been home for two hours.

The display read 1:37 when he let go of his pajamas, his hand stiff from being tightly clenched for so long, and braced himself on the floor.

The display read 1:51 by the time he pushed himself to his feet. The pins and needles that rushed down his legs forced him to brace himself on the wall. Walking through the prickling pain felt, somehow, like a kind of penance, gave him a strange vicious self-satisfaction that he was simply too worn down to care to examine.

The splintered off piece of his reason that had guided him to his feet, strained to breaking, murmured to him to go get cleaned up. So he did. A shower, no bath, because simple good sense said it was late enough, and he’d be even more exhausted in the morning at this rate. It wouldn’t do to worry anyone on the team if he showed up with dark circles in his eyes, though all logic said they’d likely worry about him anyway, given the

Well, he’d just have to give them less cause.

When he failed to sleep that night, despite going through the motions, despite putting his futon out, despite trying and failing to do anything except stare blankly at the shadows on his ceiling, he decided that his best answer was to just go buy some cheap concealer at Junes and pretend like none of the previous night had happened. Dawn at last crept through the blinds to cast pale light on a room empty even of the boy still within it.

 

(nanako was dead.)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm making liberal use of the anime timeline for this one. I started this several years ago and in just the past few days had the inspiration to finish it. Not for any personal reasons, I'm fine. It's just a piece I wanted to complete. 
> 
> If you can figure out what pun I was trying to make with the title, I will give you one whole dollar. I haven't got a clue.
> 
> I don't use tumblr anymore, but you're welcome to come find me on twitter @[mechanismic](https://twitter.com/mechanismic).


End file.
